It is always easier to discuss something in writing or discussion, than to actually work those things out in real life. Doctrine and theology can be like that. It is one thing for me to write all these posts on marriage, and quite another for my wife and I to figure out how that looks practically. My wife is a beautiful, intelligent, and compassionate woman who I am blessed to call my beloved. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t had our share of “discussions” over the years on marriage, and had to pray and process how to exemplify Christ in our marriage (or at least how not to kill each other…)
In discussing the “source” and “authority” views, it may be helpful to you to know that the two main views on women in ministry and authority in marriage are called the complementarian view and the egalitarian view. Complementarians are those who hold that women were created to “compliment” their husbands in the marriage going back to the Genesis passage describing Eve as Adam’s “helper”. This isn’t a slave like role at all, but a beautiful picture to them of how God created the genders to work together to full potential as a couple and family. Egalitarians believe in mutual submission in marriage, and see marriage as a mirror of the body of Christ in that there is complete equality through our identity in Christ and intended purposes. Wonderful men and women in Christ are on both sides of this argument, and both have published well thought out defenses of their views.
Let us address the various ways to explain the guidelines of Paul concerning headship and submission. 1) Paul commands them in 5:21 to “submit to one another”, and he does this to establish that all relationships should be mutual submission. Even if we say that the command toward mutual submission is the over-arching command, we would still be left with having to explain the command to “submit” and the definition of headship. This view would need to be combined with one of the below in my opinion to be a comprehensive view.
2) Paul is merely addressing what each one struggles with (women with submitting and men with love) but both are applicable for husband and wife (both need to love and submit). I will agree that there is truth in the studies showing that men often struggle to be loving and to express that love openly to their wives, while women struggle in the area of control and coming to agreement. Of course, both husband and wife need to show love and respect to one another, and are not exempt. This still doesn’t address the meaning of headship, nor does it do away with passages like 1 Peter 3:1 that include submission but not in the Ephesians 5 formula.
3) This was a temporal command (not timeless) based on the culture of their day and was intended to be phased out as they understood their identity in Christ (just like Paul never says “Don’t have slaves” in the New Testament). There are definitely examples of temporal commands in the Bible. The passage looked at for headship in 1 Corinthians 11 has one included in the command for women to cover their heads while praying or prophesying in church. Only a minority of Christians believe that is timeless, while most hold it to be temporal due to issues in Greco Roman culture. I agree that this can be a slipperly slope as a method of application, but we can’t dismiss it all together due to the fact that there are solid examples like slavery. I believe that if you apply Paul’s commands in Philemon, you don’t have slavery (viewing the slave as his brother), so he lays the foundation for the eradication of slavery within the church. The argument against this would be that it is linked with headship, and headship of Jesus to the church has not, and never will change.
4) Paul is establishing roles within marriage with the wife “submitting” to her husband’s authority. We will address this more later, but some feel that the issue of submission and headship should only be applied within marriage no matter our conclusion. This belief focuses on the fact that Paul is only addressing marriage and never meant for this to be applied to the discussion on women in ministry or women in leadership. The context of the passages begs for the translation of the Greek into “husband/wife” and not the other option of “man/woman” in a more general sense.
As regards the question on women in leadership, the two main views on headship in marriage affect how they answer this question. The complementarian view states that if there is authority of the husband in marriage, then that carries over into the decision on women in leadership in the church. For example, if the husband has the role of authority at home in marriage, how could his wife be the pastor of his church? How could she be his authority at church and he be her authority at home at the same time? Due to this conundrum, complementarians do not support women pastors, and have differing views on women being in any place of authority. Some feel that as long as a man is the “head” or top leader in the church, women can assume places of leadership under them (for example as a youth pastor, children’s minister, or even elder). Others feel that any position which would give a woman authority over a man in church (like a music minister for example) would not be Biblical.
Those that hold the egalitarian view of headship in marriage, in general are supportive of women in church leadership positions. There are no roles in the church which are reserved for male or female specifically, but men and women are equally capable of fulfilling any job. They view Paul’s command in 1 Timothy about women not being in authority as only applicable to the church of Ephesus at the that time, in the same way the command about women not teaching was not his universal rule.
In the end, both husband and wife are challenged by the comparison of their relationship to Jesus and the church. Can any of us say that we have attained the level of love and sacrifice that Jesus has? I can honestly say that I have a LOOOOOOONG way to go before I can say that I love my wife in the SAME way that Jesus loves the church, much less saying that I even love my wife as much as I “love myself”. In the end, both authority and relationships are completely different in Christ than they are out in the world. If we could as husbands and wives focus on that example of Christ and His humility (Philippians 2:5-8), I believe a lot of these arguments would fade away.
The Bible Nerd 